What would possess someone to start a poetry festival in Northern Ontario?It had something to do with the power of the past acting as mother lode of inspiration. While editing my poems for a upcoming chapbook i heard of a poetry contest. I wrote a poem(calling us home) about growing up in the 50's ,60's in a mining town called Cobalt. Entered it, but found out later the contest had been cancelled.So contacted my sister Sue who is on the library board to ask the Cobalt Public Library to revive it.
The contest was named after Canada's first national poet William Henry Drummond. For 3 years he lived in the Cobalt camp as first doctor, vice president of the Drummond silver mine, and poet.I'd remembered taking him in school and reciting some of his patois dialect poems like "Little Batesse". So i thought i would check out his archives at the library. I noted that he died on April 6 1907 thus 2007 is the 100Th anniversary of his death.A century later another poet had discovered the towns greatest poet.So i began spreading the word. Eventually the library put on a very well attended Drummond Day.Then everything seemed to quiet down. When i returned from working in Alberta i wanted to keep the momentum going with events,ceremonies, etc for the rest of the year.It dawned i had to become a cultural entrepreneur and would plan a festival event next spring for the anniversaries ending.
So i asked the library for permission to manage the poetry contest and teamed up with Deborah Ranchuck of White Mountain Publications(www.wmpub.ca).I would create a 4 day poetry festival integrating the Doctor William Henry Drummond Poetry Contest www.wmpub.ca/95-drummond.htm with an awards ceremony, continue the Drummond Day but at a bigger venue (www.classictheatre.net) and have various poetry performances around town.
One of my missions was to organize and unite the local poets into a community.Last summer when i was in the hinterland of my imagination wondering what might happen i found a quotation by Albert Einstein. He said if your idea is not absurd you will have no chance of succeeding.So that in essence is an indirect answer to the question i presented at the start of this posting.I've always loved the challenge of integrative thinking, pulling together contradictory and divergent persons and organizations into a cohesive, synthesized powerhouse, of passion and collaborative purpose.The ship becomes more than the captain and it's crew.So thus Canada's newest poetry festival is born and will be the first festival of "National Poetry Month" in the spring of 2008.
I envisioned a process of before ,during, and after the festival thus putting poetry on the cultural road map from Temiskaming Shores to Temagami.So many community outreach projects are planned for the coming months. The first is on Friday December 28 from 2-4 p.m. at smoothwater ecolodge(www.smoothwater.com) 14 km. north of Temagami 705-569-3539 a beer tasting and poetry event with readings by 4 local poets and after an open mic.
For information on other events contact Tyna Silver at tynasilver@hotmail.com
dave
mybrydges@yahoo.ca
artistic director
spring pulse poetry festival
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